♦ MUSINSKY RARE BOOKS ♦
Sixteen illustrated books from the sixteenth century
A short list for late winter
No. 2
www.musinskyrarebooks.com + 1 212 579-2099 / [email protected]
A woman’s private liturgy
1) HORAE B.M.V., use of Rome. Hore christifere virginis marie. Paris: Simon Vostre, [ca. 1508]. $32,000
A FINE, LARGE, RED-RULED COPY of the most lavishly illustrated of Simon Vostre’s quarto editions, called the “grandes heures” as much for the richness of their illustrative material as for their format. Vostre’s complete new series of fourteen very large full-page metalcuts, attributed to the workshop of Jean Pichore, first appeared in this edition; only three had appeared previously.
This copy is bound with six pages of contemporary manuscript prayers and devout meditations by a woman, preserved by the binder Capé when the copy was luxuriously rebound in the 19th century in a retrospective style.
4to. 14 full-page and many smaller metalcuts, including page borders assembled from individual cuts. 19th-century red goatskin with a strapwork décor, by Capé. The Robert Hoe - Cortland Bishop - Mary S. Collins copy.
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One of three known copies
2) CIBOULE, Robert. Le Livre de la perfection de la vie crestienne. Paris: Philippe Pigouchet for Simon Vostre, [ca. 1510]. $6750
Probable FIRST EDITION of a treatise on the path to spiritual enlightenment, an eight-step plan devised by a well- known contemporary preacher. Although written in French in order to reach a broad audience, the ascetic spiritual path proposed by Ciboule required a quasi- monastic existence, inaccessible to most laypeople.
A fragmentary copy survives of an undated edition printed by Gilles Couteau, who was active from 1491 to 1523; the priority of these two rare editions has not been established.
8vo. Bâtarde types. Metalcut devices of the printer and publisher, and full-page metalcut of the Trinity and the Church (also used in the preceding Vostre Horae). 18th- century boards. Provenance: Carmelites of Valenciennes.
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See also cover illustration
Herculean labors
3) SALIS, Baptista de (Trovamala). Summa Roselle de casibus conscientie. Strassburg: Johann Knobloch, 26 February 1516. $6500
FIRST CORRECT EDITION of a popular guide to canon law, revised and edited by the important Strassburg humanist Ottmar Nachtgall (Luscinius), who described the toils of correcting the error-ridden text as a “Herculean labor.”
Arranged alphabetically by subject, from Abbas to Uxor, the work includes detailed guidelines for various topics, from absolution and adultery to novices, relics, and usury. The large woodcut title border by Hans Baldung Grien shows Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I enthroned, holding scepter and orb.
The copy has interesting eastern European provenance and retains its well-preserved Moravian binding.
Folio. Woodcut title border. Contemporary half pigskin over wooden boards. From the library of the Czech humanist Franciscus Godefridus Troilus à Lessoth, with his large woodcut bookplate.
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Buying books and wine
4) GEILER VON KAISERSBERG, Johann; PAULI, Johann. Die brösamlin. Strassburg: Johannes Grüninger, 1517. $20,000
ONLY EDITION of this illustrated collection of sermons of the peerless pre-Reformation Alsatian preacher Johannes Geiler. Geiler preached in German, mainly in the Strassburg Cathedral, from his Latin notes, and the compilations of his sermons were made by auditors, in this case the generally reliable Johann Pauli.
Geiler’s sermons were known for his colorful language, erudition, and uncommon exempla. Arranged thematically, each subject is explored from various angles; thus, for example, a section relating to merchants includes moral guidelines for commercial behavior and on the sins and temptations of commerce, as well as extended comparisons of merchants to the Devil.
Folio. Title printed in red and black within woodcut border, 34 woodcut illustrations by the Master H. F., Hans Schäufelein, and others. Contemporary German blind- tooled pigskin over wooden boards. Provenance: the Carthusians of Buxheim, with purchase note by Wilhelm von Zell, the monastery’s domicellus (cellarer).
See more: Geiler von Kaisersburg Portable glossed Bible
5) BIBLE, Latin. Biblia cum ... apparatu. Lyon: Jacques Mareschal [for Simon Vincent], 16 October 1519. $6500
A complete portable Bible printed in very small types, containing finding aids and an ample scholarly apparatus for the use of theology students and scholars; this copy with contemporary annotations and in a contemporary, probably Flemish binding.
Although economically printed, the Bible is enlivened by hundreds of historiated woodcut initials from woodcut alphabets designed by Guillaume Leroy, who also designed the six-part full-page woodcut of the Creation.
This is the fourth of six editions of Mareschal’s useful “pocket” Bibles, which were the first Bible editions to include a RHYMING MNEMONIC BIBLICAL SUMMARY by the Minorite friar Franciscus Gothi, in which each four-line verse summarizes a Biblical chapter.
8vo. Contemporary blind-tooled calf over wooden boards.
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The importance of an impartial judiciary
6) ALBERT OF BRANDENBURG, Archbishop and Elector of Mainz. Meintzisch hoffgerichts Ordnung. [Bound with:] Undergerichts ordnung des Ertzstiffts Meyntz. Mainz: Johann Schöffer, 1521 / 1534. $3800
FIRST EDITION of the judicial statutes of the Electorate of Mainz, the largest ecclesiastical province of Germany and one of the most prestigious and powerful states of the Holy Roman Empire; bound with the first edition of the statutes of the lower court of the Mainz Prince-Bishopric.
Both these influential procedural codes explicitly adopted the common law (ius commune), a combination of Roman and canon law, and both laid down precise rules for court procedure. They are filled with down-to-earth details, such as where the courts reside, who should serve in them, how trials are to be conducted, the duties of court scribes. The Hofgerichts Ordnung provides oaths for different court officials and for special segments of the population (including witnesses, the poor, and Jews), and establishes the right of the poor to legal representation.
2 volumes in one, small folio. Ten-block woodcut title border. Bound with a folding leaf of contemporary manuscript commentary. Modern boards.
See more: Mainz law
A Gallic take on human foibles
7) BRANT, Sebastian; DROUYN, Jean. La grand nef des folz du monde. Lyon: François Juste, (1529-) 1530. $35,000
A French prose adaptation of Brant’s allegorical satire, illustrated with Lyonese blocks copied from the original Basel woodcut series: A SUPERB FRENCH WOODCUT BOOK, FROM THE LIBRARY OF AMBROISE FIRMIN-FIDOT.
Drouyn, a law clerk from Amiens, probably based his prose version on a French verse translation by Pierre Riviere, rather than on Jacob Locher’s Latin translation of Brant’s German satire. Only a few sixteenth-century French- language editions of the Narrenschiff are recorded; some vernacular editions may have been lost. This edition is the earliest known book published by François Juste alone.
4to. Gothic types. Title printed in red and black. 119 woodcut illustrations. 18th-century French red morocco. Firmin-Didot bookplate.
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A landmark of German book illustration
8) PETRARCH MASTER, artist. — JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus. Warhafftige Hystorien ... auss Trogo Pompeio gezoge[n]. 1531. [Bound with:] HERODIANUS. Der Fürtrefflich Griechisch geschicht schreiber Herodianus. 19 August 1531. [Bound with:] CICERO, Marcus Tullius. Officia [in German]. 7 December 1531. All Augsburg: Heinrich Steiner. $20,000
A FINE COPY of three important editions of classical texts in the first or second German translations, containing among the earliest appearances of the outstanding woodcut illustration cycle attributed to the so-called Petrarca- Meister.
The over 150 woodcuts contain vignettes of contemporary Renaissance life: a notary’s office, a conjurer, an armorer's shop, a scriptorium, a painter’s studio, a domestic interior with eight children, a dancing bear, an amputation and a phlebotomy, doctors consulting, drunken men fighting, a construction site, etc. Although the illustrator, whose identity has long been debated, was later named after Steiner’s edition of Petrarch, De remediis, that work did not appear until 1532.
3 vols. in one, folio, contemporary blind-stamped alum- tawed pigskin over wooden boards.
See more: Petrarca-Meister How to handle it all
9) [LE ROY, François]. Le Dialogue de consolation entre l’ame et raison. Paris: [Étienne Caveiller for] Denis Janot, 1537. $3000
A dialectical interchange between reason and the tormented soul, by a monk of the order of Fontevrault, a “double” monastery, populated by both monks and nuns, who resided in separate convents but were governed by a single Abbess.
In this internal dialogue the Soul, tormented by temptations and spiritual tribulations, is counseled by Reason, who provides consolation in the form of contemplation and devout meditation.
The work is illustrated with a full-page metalcut of the Pentecost, showing the Trinity above the assembled Church and nations,. This cut made repeated appearances in Parisian religious books from the end of the fifteenth century to the latter sixteenth century. The plate in this edition is a very close copy of the one used in numbers 1 and 2 above.
8vo. Title in red and black within metalcut border, full- page metalcut illustration. Modern goatskin.
See more: Le Roy
Math is no. 1
10) LA PERRIÈRE, Guillaume de. Les Considérations des quatre mondes. Lyon: Macé Bonhomme [for Jean Mounier and Jean Perrin in Toulouse], 1552. $5800
FIRST EDITION of a cosmological work containing four hundred French HERMETIC QUATRAINS on the four worlds: divine, angelic, celestial, and “sensible” (that which can be grasped by the senses). The preface to part one contains a lengthy ENCOMIUM OF MATHEMATICS and mathematical symbolization as the best way to apprehend what the human mind cannot otherwise understand. In his prefaces to each part La Perrière praises mathematicians and scientists, including Pacioli and the geometrician Bouelles.
La Perrière was the author of the first French emblem book, the Théâtre des bons engins (1539). The poems in the present work so obviously cry out for emblematic illustrations that the book has been called a “para-emblem book.”
8vo. Woodcut author portrait and grotesque page borders throughout. 16th-century painted strapwork binding (restored). From the libraries of Louis de La Saussaye, William Loring Andrews, Cortlandt F. Bishop, and Maurice Burrus.
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Before vaccines
11) CREUTZER, Peter. Planeten Büchlin. Frankfurt: Weigandt Han, [not before 1556]. $8500
An illustrated astrological handbook in its original red- dyed parchment flap binding.
Creutzer identified himself as a student of court astronomer Johann Lichtenberg. His popular and now very rare “Planet Book” contains astrological predictions and medical advice, listing the planetary influences on various body parts, and providing monthly recommendations of astrologically appropriate foods, drinks, herbal remedies, counsels for bathing and blood-letting points.
One other copy located.
4to. Red and black printing. 32 woodcut illustrations. Contemporary German laced-case dark red dyed parchment binding with envelope flap.
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Youthful genius
12) WOEIRIOT, Pierre, artist. Pinax iconicus antiquorum ac variorum in sepulturis rituum. Lyon: Clément Baudin, 1556. $35,000
ONLY EDITION. A superb copy of one of the greatest and rarest of French sixteenth-century illustrated books, a masterpiece by a 24-year old goldsmith. One of the earliest French books illustrated with copper engravings, it is THE FIRST FRENCH ARTIST’S BOOK.
Woeiriot’s engravings illustrate excerpts from Lilio Gregorio Giraldi’s De sepulchris & vario sepeliendi ritu (Basel 1539), on ancient funeral rites. The artist designed and engraved the copperplates, which he had personally cast and polished. He had the work printed and published, obtaining a royal privilege under his own name. The engravings, in the Fontainebleau mannerist style, are exceptionally detailed and fine.
Oblong 8vo. 13 engraved plates, of which nine show exotic and partly fantastical funerary rites, by and after Woeiriot. Blind-stamped morocco by Bauzonnet.
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With lawyers like these …
13) ZENOI, Domenico, artist. Illustrium iureconsultorum imagines ... Ex musaeo Marci Mantuae Benevidii. Venice: Donato Bertelli, 1569. $14,000
ONLY EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, of a very rare series of engraved portraits of Italian jurists, based on portraits in the collection of the Paduan jurist, humanist, and art collector Marco Mantova Benavides.
The 24 engraved portraits are smaller versions of a series of unsigned engravings published by Antoine Lafréry in Rome in 1566 under the same title. Evidently Zenoi and Bertelli saw a commercial opportunity in disseminating their own more accessible version of the larger, more polished, and certainly more expensive Lafréry suite. But it was the enterprising Zenoi (whose checkered past included dealing in obscene prints) who later produced an independent “sequel” to this series, showing that he had a personal relationship with the collector.
4to. Entirely engraved. Later boards.
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Gaudioso, doloroso, glorioso
14) LUIS DE GRANADA. Rosario figurato della Sacratissima Vergine Maria. Rome: (Giuseppe de gl’Angeli for) Giovanni Baptista de' Cavalieri & Lorenzo Oderico, 1576-1577. $2850
Early edition of a popular Italian companion to the mysteries of the rosary, illustrated with a series of emblematic engravings which reinforce the numerical satisfactions of reciting the rosary. Andrea Giannetti compiled the text from the spiritual writings of the Spanish Dominican.
While it originated in monastic devotions, the practice of reciting the rosary, which is traced to the 15th-century Dominican Alanus de Rupe, became a genuinely popular religious phenomenon. This book was one of a handful of rosary publications that accelerated dissemination of the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, and the flourishing of Rosary confraternities, whose members were predominantly women.
4to. Engraved title by Adamo Scultori, 21 large engravings. Contemporary parchment.
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Popular plays with a purpose
15) AMSTERDAM CHAMBER OF RHETORIC. Zeven Spelen van die Wercken der Bermherticheyd. Amsterdam: H. J. Muller, 1591. $7500
ONLY EDITION of an anonymous vernacular play collection on the theme of the seven Works of Mercy, collectively written and performed in the open air. This quasi- competitive event, held on seven consecutive Sundays by the Amsterdam literary confraternity or “chamber of rhetoric” known as de Egelantier, was held, as was tradition, for a practical purpose: in this case, to encourage the citizens of Amsterdam to participate in a lottery for the benefit of the Amsterdam insane asylum.
The printer-publisher Harmen Jansz Muller, himself a member of De Egelantier, came from a family of engravers, printers, and print- and booksellers who operated under the sign of “Den Vergulden Passer.” As in many of his imprints, Muller identifies himself here as a figuersnyder, and it is possible that most of the woodcuts were his own work.
8vo. Seven woodcuts. 17th-century parchment.
See more: Egelantier
Unrecorded, in a publisher’s binding?
16) MISSAL. Missale Romanum, ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum. Paris: the Associated Booksellers to the Church, 1600. $15,000
UNRECORDED ISSUE of an imposing post-Tridentine Missal, whose illustrations differ from the two other known copies of this edition.
The many elaborate woodcut historiated initials, containing “figures of the saints, the Evangelists, and ... New Testament scenes, may be attributed to the same artists who worked on the illustrations. The blocks are so detailed as to give the impression of additional illustrations rather than initials” (Mortimer).
The tools of the luxurious morocco binding appear on other books published by the same consortium, and have been associated with religious lay confraternities founded by Henri III in the 1580s.
Folio. Red and black printing, printed music, 7 full-page woodcuts, over 300 historiated initials. Contemporary French gold-tooled citron morocco.
See more: Missal
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